The Penn's Grove record., 1887-06-04
HOW GLOVES ARE MADE.
Where They Come Frora.

Nobody, so far as we know has aver
disputed the proposition that one=half
Of the world does not know how the
other half lives; and we have little fear
of contradiction when we make bold to
declare that probably one-half of the peo-
pie of the United States do not know
where their gloves come from. OF course
it is generally known that gloves Of fine
kid, such as ladies wear, and gloves of
a certain form which fashion prescribes
for men, are brought from abroad, but
whence comes the great supply of all
the other gloves? The answer would
not be very far wrong if one were to
say from Fulton County, New York.
Fonr-ffths of the gloves made III
America, it is estimated, are manufac-
tured In the county named, and the
manufactures which make gloves else
where are in great part the children of
Fulton County, indebted to her for their
nurture and their establishment in life,
The headquarters of the glove-mak,
ing industry in Fulton County are forty
five miles northwest of Albany in Johns
town Township. The villages OF Clio
versville and Johnstown in that town
ship contain a population Of about 90
900, seven-eighths of whom are glove
makers. There are upward of $50 glove
manufactures in the section. Glove
was begun early in the present century.
Upon the passing away of Sir William
Johnson, the famous Indian agent of
colonial times, and Of his son Sir John,
a jealous Tory who fought fieroely for
King George, the Dutch farmers of the
neighborhood looked about for some
better means of support than were
offered to them by the soil. which was,
not fitted for h~usbandry, although therei
was good grazing land upon the stony
hillsides. A shrewd family from Con-
n~ecticut are popularity credited with
introducing into the neighborhood the
manufacture Of buckskin gloves. There
was In the convenient North Woods in
those days a supply of material for this
manufacture so great that nobody
would have thought it could ever be
exhausted, but the demand of the
American people for gloves proved to
be still greater, and the North Woods
deer ceased to be depended upon by the
Fulton County glove-makers years ago.
To-day the gloves manufactured in
Gloversvillean Johnstown are made Of
skins brought from the most distant
parts of the globe. The great bulk are
buck-skins and sheep-skins, but there
are many others which the glovemakers
use-among them seal. skin, dog-skin,
East India cowhide, and the skin of the
South American water-hog, The bulk
of the buekSkin comes from Mexico and
Genital and South America. The deer
of the tropics is covered with a heavier
skin than covers the deer of these lati-
tudes, and the finest sheep-skin comes
from South Africa, and is that of the
Cape hair sheep. 1.-THE coarser the wool
the finer the skim" is a gloye-maker's
All manner of furs, too, go to
Fulton County, to be used in finishing
the gloves.
The business Of glove-making in Full
ton County amounts to about IS, 600, 600
yearly. The wages of the most skillful
called-run from $50 to $50 month";
block cutters get from 500 to S65
monthly, and machine girls earn,
according to their skill, from So to S12
and oven S14 a week.
The skins of which gloves are made
go through a very exhaustive variety of
processes. Some of them are soaked in
watts variously from three days to four
weeks, after which they get a scraping
from the ''beamn worker, They are
then dried into parchment, then soaked
in water, then ''milled" in oil, then put
upon the beam again and secured Of oil
and natural grease with alkali, being |
dried In the course of this
various treatment. After the alkali
securing they are put upon the "break-
machine, and are then "hand-
with a blunt tool to render
them pliable, Then they go on to the
~''buck-tail," or emery wheel, and from
there into the identical oil and natural
grease of which they were secured with
such pains. Then they are wrung out
and eolored, then again ''broke-stakedn
and 'fnishedn then smoked, and then
turned over to the glove-makers, who
promptly ''stake" them again, cut them
ON the block or by hand stable"
eutttngl, ''silk" them, sew them, do
much else to them, put buttons on
them, fit them over metal hands heated
by steam, sort them, and put them Up
in the pastehoard boxes In which they
are sent to market. The gloves made
in Fulton County are of all sorts, and
range from a lady's kid to the cowboys
gauntlet splendid with tassels and gold
cord. '